He gets up and lunges at me, pulling at the ropes on his wrists. I step out of the way, turning on him and pistol-whipping him in the side of the head with my gun. He falls hard, face smacking into the cement floor.
The sirens grow louder, and I take Gemma by the arm again, helping her move toward the door.
“We’re down here!” I shout once I hear my fellow officers enter the building. I wipe blood off my face, realizing for the first time that I’m bleeding, and turn to Gemma. I want to tell her this isn’t over, that I know what she and Marissa did, but I can’t. She looks so defeated, so weak.
Instead, I hook my arm under hers and tell her it’s going to be okay.
26
Iknock on the door frame of the open hospital room. Gemma lifts her head off the pillow and tries to sit up when she sees me.
“I brought you flowers,” I say, walking in.
“Ace.” She winces as she pushes off the mattress, forgetting she can just raise the head of her bed up. “I could thank you a million times and it’ll never be enough. You saved my life.”
I set the flowers down on the little round table in the corner of the room. Crossing my arms, I go to the window and look out at the city below.
“We need to talk.”
My words bring the temperature down a notch in the room, and when I turn around, Gemma’s brows are furrowed.
“You know,” she whispers hoarsely.
“Yeah. I do.”
“Did you know before…before I was kidnapped?”
“Yeah.”
She wraps her arms around herself. “You knew and you still saved me.”
“Of course I did!” I spit. “I’m not a monster. Not like some people.”
“Ace,” she pleads. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Oh, it wasn’t? You just pretended to be my friend so you could try to kill me? Yeah, it’s not like that at all. What a great fucking friend you are.”
“Let me explain.”
“What good will that do?”
“Ace, please.” Tears fall from her eyes. “You are my friend! I…I didn’t want to do it. They made me.”
“Give me a break.” I roll my eyes, too angry to stay and hear more. “You used me this whole time.”
“No, I didn’t! I didn’t even tell them I met you, and then they found out and made me get information on you.”
“They made you? Come on, Gemma, you’re a grown-ass adult. Did they hold a gun to your head and force you?”
“No.” Her lip quivers and she starts to cry. “They said if I did this they’d let me be part of their coven. I…I just want a family again.”
My jaw tenses, but I refuse to let myself feel bad for her. She made her bed. She gets to lie in it.
“You want to be part of a family that hurts people for no reason?”
She shakes her head. “They told me you were bad. Part of a coven who turned their backs on their fellow witches.”
“What?”
